


no anxiety, no agitation

by ideare



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9648659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideare/pseuds/ideare
Summary: while all of hogwarts sleeps, blaise helps relieve the itch in draco's arm.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FangQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangQueen/gifts).



> If you meet somebody and your heart pounds, your hands shake, your knees go weak, that’s not the one. When you meet your ‘soul mate’ you’ll feel calm. No anxiety, no agitation.
> 
>   
>  —   
>  _Clown Girl_ , Monica Drake

  
  
  
  


Draco rubs hard at the skin at the edge of his new tattoo trying in vain to imagine he's actually scratching at the part that really itches. It is so frustrating trying to work around the constant itch the ink of the tattoo creates. He has tried everything to stop the sensation, from cooling gels to Vaseline, and so far nothing has worked.

Right now, he's tucked away by a bend in the corridors to the Slytherin dorms. It's the early hours of the morning. A time when silence falls so thickly over Hogwarts that the air around him makes him feel like his ears are blocked. Even though he is used to a common room that's partly underwater, and dorms that are completely submerged, Draco has never quite gotten used to the deafening way the silence becomes here.

He has an ice cube melting against his forearm, pressing deep into the Dark Mark on his left arm. His fingertips are red and numb from the cold and the only thing the ice seems to be doing is deepening the itch. He lets out a groan of frustration as he frantically rubs the ice cube up and down his arm, pushing deeper so his fingernails barely scratch the surface of his skin. It's a tantalising tease, not providing him with any real release, and he almost wants to cry from the lack of satisfaction he's getting from this.

The moonlight that bleeds through the lake, disperses into a faint glow through the reinforced glass of the Slytherin corridor he's in, bathing everything in a sickly green sheen. The eyes of the Dark Mark seem to wink at him every time he pushes the ice cube through the dripping puddle that melts over his arm. Draco shivers and increases his speed.

A low whistle reverberates around him, and he pulls his shirt sleeve down, dropping the tiny fragment of the ice cube in his haste. The sleeve turns translucent in the wet patch on his arm. He whips around and spots Blaise, slinking into the light of a window before coming closer to Draco.

"I'd heard whispers, but I didn't think they were actually true," Blaise lifts up Draco's arm when he is near enough. "May I?"

Draco nods, not really sure what Blaise will do, but trusting him all the same.

Blaise carefully pulls up Draco's sleeve, revealing the wet and slightly reddened skin where the Dark Mark stares blankly up at them. There is a microsecond where Blaise hesitates before he uses the edge of the sleeve of his nightshirt to wipe away the remaining wetness. He uses his index and middle fingers to tap rhythmically against the tattoo; the action reminding Draco of the healers at St. Mungo's preparing someone for an injection. Blaise moves his fingers up and down the area of the Dark Mark, and just a bit before and after the design has ended. The way he taps his fingers on Draco's arm is gentle, but firm, applying just the right pressure to provide Draco with the relief he has otherwise been unable to get.

The itching seems to gradually evaporate after each touch of Blaise's fingers. His rhythmic tapping lulls Draco's tumultuous mind into more peaceful thoughts, his eyes slipping shut, and he finds the tension in his body seeping out; right now, right here — for the first time in a long time, he is relaxed.

"You know this isn't our fight, right?" Blaise's voice is soft in the otherwise silent corridor, and Draco almost doesn't catch what he's saying. "Whatever war the Dark Lord wants to wage, it will be out there — with the adults and people of his generation, not in here with us. We have nothing to do with any of this."

Draco almosts laughs at that. Almost.

He opens his eyes, looking up and studying Blaise's face, weighing his options. Blaise seems to feel Draco's gaze because he looks up too, their eyes locking. And Draco is so, so tempted to tell Blaise everything: about all the things that have happened this past summer, all the things Lord Voldemort has planned for him this school year. But Blaise still looks so _innocent_ in a way that Draco can never be again. An innocence that Draco refuses to steal from him until he absolutely has to. Now isn't the time for that, though.

He shakes his head a little and looks away. Down to his arm, and the eyes of the Dark Mark staring blankly back at him. Blaise has stopped his tapping and the itching has ended. Now all Blaise is doing is holding Draco's hand gently with one hand supporting Draco's arm.

Pulling away from him, Draco shakes his damp sleeve down. "Your mum might not fight," he says, straightening out the creased sleeve, "but my parents will. That makes whatever Lord Voldemort has planned as much to do with me as it does with them. This _is_ my fight, and I won't just stand on the sidelines."

He looks to Blaise again, a quick glance to size up Blaise's reaction: calm, grudgingly accepting, maybe, but not arrogantly judgemental.

Draco mutters thanks, indicating vaguely around them but implying his arm, before turning towards the common room. He plans to head to the Room of Hidden Things that he's been practising in, the one that appears on the seventh floor like a blessing every time he starts panicking about all the things he needs to do.

Blaise says something behind him, his voice boomeranging down the corners of the corridor. Draco catches a wisp of 'curfew' but doesn't slow down on his way to the common room entrance. What is one more rule being broken in the prelude to the flood that will follow?

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted to [rarepair-shorts](http://rarepair-shorts.livejournal.com/581259.html) on lj.


End file.
